


Worth The Harm

by DetectiveJoan



Category: The AM Archives (Podcast), The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, TAMA Coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-19 02:43:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29743779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveJoan/pseuds/DetectiveJoan
Summary: “I wouldn’t ask, not with everything you’ve been through today—or yesterday, or—that doesn’t matter, actually, I just mean—I mean, we can’t know how long the serum’s going to last, so I can’t exactly ask later, and I thought maybe—”He should say no.“Yes,” he says. “Of course.”
Relationships: Samantha Barnes/Mark Bryant
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Worth The Harm

**Author's Note:**

> “Are we living a life that is safe from harm? Of course not. We never are. But that’s not the question. The question is: are we living a life that is [worth the harm](https://theartofmadeline.tumblr.com/post/616123557583388672/relistened-to-parade-day-and-can-confirm-this-line)?”

Mark has been awake for going on 27 hours, his brain is moving like molasses, and the serum still coursing its way through his system is keeping him slightly off-center. It’s altogether not the state he wanted to be in the next time he saw Sam, but there she is on the doorstep when he answers the soft knock. 

“Hey,” she says when he very stupidly says nothing. 

“Hi,” he manages.

She rubs one elbow with the opposite hand. She’s changed her clothes and her hair is hanging damply, so she must have showered, which is several steps closer to being a human than he’d managed.

She glances over his shoulder into the apartment. “Can I…?” 

“Oh, yeah, come in,” he says. Was he staring? He holds the door open for her, and scrubs one hand over his face as she steps in. 

Get it together, Bryant. Say something coherent. Literally verbalize any complete sentence. 

“So, how is Mags?” he asks. 

Brilliant, definitely a topic he wants to talk about. 

“Good. She’s good. All things considered, of course.” Sam tucks her hair behind both of her ears. “They gave her some pretty strong pain meds, so she’s home sleeping those off now, but they said they don’t expect much permanent damage—besides scarring, obviously.” 

“Good,” Mark parrots. “That’s good.”

Sam glances around the empty living room. “And Joan? Is she—?” 

“Also sleeping, thankfully,” he says. Shit, of course Joanie is why Sam’s here. “If you wanted to, I don’t know, leave a message…” 

Sam folds her arms across her chest tightly. There’s a blush lightly spreading over the tops of her cheeks. “I, um, actually came to see you,” she says. “Sorry, I should have called first, or texted even, but I, uh, wasn’t actually sure if I was going to chicken out and change my mind halfway here.” 

She cuts herself off with a self-deprecating laugh. 

“Sam.” He reaches out and gently takes each of her hands in his, guides her to uncross her arms and then—oh, they’re accidentally standing almost nose to nose. He swallows. She takes a deep breath in and releases it slowly. “You don’t have to be brave with me,” he reminds her. “I’m here. What do you want?” 

“I wanted to ask,” she says, and her voice is small but she meets his gaze squarely, “if you would hold me while I fell apart a little bit?”

“Sam—” he says again, but she cuts him off. 

“I wouldn’t ask, not with everything you’ve been through today—or yesterday, or—that doesn’t matter, actually, I just mean—I mean, we can’t know how long the serum’s going to last, so I can’t exactly ask later, and I thought maybe—” 

He should say no.

“Yes,” he says. “Of course. Let me just—over here?”

He half-gestures toward the couch and she nods. It takes a bit of awkward shuffling to get situated, but then he’s leaning back against the cushions with both of his arms around her, and she’s curled up tightly against his chest, sniffling into his shirt front. 

It’s a switch-up from their usual, him getting to be the knight for a change. It’s nice—to be useful, to be the strong one by some metric.

There are several reasons he shouldn’t have agreed to this. She’d crossed his boundaries and invaded his privacy, dug into his history without his permissions after he’d told her to stop trying to dig through his head. Before he’d left he’d told her he needed space and she’d been respectful of that so far, but showing up with this request now is...not exactly the best way to let him settle into his recalibration of who they are to each other.

It’s still odd, really, how normal she looks. Nothing gives her away as the kind of person who would do something like that. She’s not like Damien, who had been so desperate to present himself as a threat, who wanted so badly to be taken seriously. Sam, in her fitted t-shirt and dark wash jeans and flower-print flats, looks like....well, like Joan. Like the nice girl you take home to meet your parents.

There were romanticized ideas of touring that he’d let himself half-imagine before they’d left. Every night in a new city, every morning waking up in a new bed next to a new person. Long nights of fun, spending hours in dark corners of dirty venues with his legs or his lips wrapped around someone who didn’t care where he’d been the day before and wouldn’t remember his name the morning after.

The reality of touring was that there was always equipment to unpack and merch to hawk, always another turn at driving the van down long stretches of nothing, and trying to get good photos between all of that. The truth was that strangers weren’t that attractive when you were four months sober, and at the end of the night he mostly wanted to crawl into the motel bed and crash.

He hadn’t kissed anyone since Sam; he hadn’t even been tempted. 

Of course he’d thought about this—about her—when Sharpe had explained the serum effects to him. It had reminded him of the future he’d used to think they might have together, back when Sam first promised to pull him out of the past and he’d let himself imagine growing old for the first time in a long time.

And now? He’s holding her body tightly in his arms and holding her betrayal in his mind, and altogether the sum of it is that he still loves her so much it might break him, might burn him straight up from the inside out if he doesn’t figure out what to do with it. 

He takes a breath to speak—

There’s a soft ripple of pinpricks beneath his skin running up his arms and then over his shoulders, and then there’s a shiver down his spine, and just like that he’s completely untethered. Either of them could pick the other up and step into another century without even trying. The weight of the possibility solidifies uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach. 

“Mark?” Sam pulls back and looks up at him, brushing the remnants of tears from the corners of her eyes. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just—shit.” He breathes out heavily through his nose. “The serum’s gone. Or, done. I don’t know, I just—” 

His throat’s gone dry, and he has to swallow a few times before he can finish. “I can feel your ability again.”

He used to love it, the weightless, floating sensation in his chest. It reminded him of the wild freedom immediately before the first plunge of a roller-coaster, the suspense of knowing exactly what would happen next.

They’re perched at the top of the rail together now, hands clutching the bar, waiting for the drop, anticipating the terror, and knowing they signed up for it.

“I’ll be careful,” Sam promises.


End file.
